Total pages in book: 126
Estimated words: 121734 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 609(@200wpm)___ 487(@250wpm)___ 406(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 121734 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 609(@200wpm)___ 487(@250wpm)___ 406(@300wpm)
He lifted his gaze to meet Kashvi’s once again before I heard her say, quietly, “I see.”
My brothers weren’t the reason I slept with Tyler. That’s not what Mal was insinuating. He was giving her a new narrative. Blame my brothers. Distract from this story and give the media sites a different one, with different bad guys.
I stared at Mal with wide eyes, because what did he know? He’d said his investigator did a thorough job, but how thorough? Did they even understand what they’d unearthed?
He stood and nodded to me. “Call me after this, please. Kashvi, keep me updated.”
“Oh.” She laughed. “You don’t have to worry about that. I’ve got a feeling I’ll be blowing up your phone after this meeting.”
“I’ll look forward to the call.”
As he left, her phone rang. “Kashvi here,” she answered, putting it on speaker.
“Ms. Kumar, there’s a Martine deBlanc here. Says she has a meeting with you.” I recognized Morty, sounding hesitant. He was here this early to clean the ice.
“Yes, Morty. Could you escort her to my offices? The girls will get her comfortable in one of the conference rooms.”
“Will do, ma’am.”
“Thank you.” She ended the call, and Tyler reached over to take my hand. He looked defiantly back at Kashvi. “I’m holding her hand.”
Amusement moved over her face. “Get it out of your system, because we need to get ahead of this story before we decide what to give Martine. Now.” She focused on me. “Start talking. And remember, I want everything.”
49
RAIN
“I’m estranged from my family. I want to be able to tell you there’s some big scandal, but there’s not. It’s just… I think it started when my mom died. I was six when she had a brain aneurysm that burst.”
I looked at the floor as I slowly began to go numb. “I remember laughing before that, so she must’ve loved me. I don’t remember my dad when I was little. But I remember moments with my brothers. We watched movies together, and it wasn’t bad. We’d make popcorn. It didn’t get bad until after Mom died.”
Suddenly I was back there, sitting in that hot funeral home. The bench was uncomfortable, and Daniel had snapped at me so many times. I never knew what I had done wrong.
“At the time, they didn’t tell me how she died. She was just gone one day, and then we were at her funeral. My dress was itchy, and this strange woman kept pinching me, making sure I was quiet. I had to sit so still. I remember that part.”
My throat hurt. “I saw her in the casket, and that’s how I knew she wasn’t coming back. I tried waking her up. Daniel hit me, told me not to be stupid.”
Kashvi inhaled sharply. “And your dad?”
I shook my head. “You know, I can’t remember him ever giving me any attention. He certainly didn’t after my mom died. Whoever that woman was, she went through the house and took down all the pictures of my mom. Those were the only pictures of me too. And he never interacted with me after that. He referred to me as ‘the girl’. If there was anything that needed to be conveyed to me, Daniel was given that task.” My numbness wasn’t quite enough. I paused to breathe for a moment. “He was so mean to me.”
“Daniel? Or your dad?” Kashvi asked.
I looked up, meeting her eyes. “Daniel. I didn’t exist to my father. There was just nothing. The best way I can explain is that I had a room. I was given food. A woman was assigned to look after me until I was older and could start doing everything myself. Laundry. My own meals. All of that.”
“And what age was that?”
I shook my head, shrugging. “I think I was eight or nine?”
There was a long silence before Kashvi asked, “You were doing laundry at eight years old?”
I nodded. “I was doing everything by that age, except driving of course.” I grimaced. “Though if I could go somewhere on my bike, I did.”
“Did your father pay for your things?”
I shook my head. “No.” Shame trickled in. “Daniel had money. I don’t know how he had it. To my knowledge, he and Dane never worked, but they always seemed to have money. I stole from him.”
There was another silence. “You stole from both of them?”
“No, just Daniel. He left his money out all the time. He never counted anything. I was smart. I took small bills to get by, ate the food that was in the cupboards. Cereal is a great thing when you don’t know how to use the stove, but once I figured that out, I was able to make other stuff. Mac and cheese. Spaghetti. I just had to make small amounts of spaghetti because the pan got too heavy for me sometimes.”